Rants and rambles

Usually my thoughts are more together before I write a blog, but that’s just not happening tonight. I’ve had a hundred thoughts running through my head these last weeks and I haven’t been able to grab a single one of them long enough to sort out something coherent. So, here I go in the hopes that something will make sense at one point in this ramble.

I’m feeling sad. That much I know. Not debilitating sad, but background sad. Not sad enough to cry, but sad enough to not be completely happy. The feeling is getting stronger, so the crying will be kicking in sometime soon (probably by the end of this blog).

Exploring why I’m feeling this way and blogging about it has always helped to make it better and get me through it. The trouble is, I still don’t know what’s going on. I haven’t run into any triggers. We aren’t close enough to Brayden’s birthday to where I’m feeling down. Although, now that I’ve written his name, I’m realizing how long it’s been since anyone said it out loud. Okay, now I’m crying :-(

He’s not been forgotten, but he’s not first anymore. My grief isn’t first and hasn’t been in some time. It hurts that our lives have moved on…it almost feels like it happened too fast and Brayden didn’t get his time with us that he should have. Even if that time was just for us to grieve his loss.

The last few times I had “down days” where I cried (or just wanted to) I realized something: I’m not really crying for Brayden anymore. I don’t know how to explain it, but I think I’m crying for just me. Sometimes I feel so alone and it has nothing to do with my family, friends or other BLM’s. It’s between me and Brayden and he isn’t here, so I cry because I’m sad for me. I cry because the connection a mother feels with her child is severed forever and I’ve never felt so alone – I think not even in those early months after our loss. It’s not stabbing pain, but it is steady...I feel like I’m reaching out into the dark and there’s nothing, just vast empty space.

The weird thing is, is that it doesn’t feel selfish to grieve for myself. I can only assume that it’s a new development in the grieving phase and I’ll get back to the normal routine of grieving later. Time will tell.

Something that has been on my mind, randomly, over and over, were a few things that were said to me after Brayden passed. I’m going to go ahead and throw out there that I’ve always tried to give “outsiders” the benefit of the doubt when listening to what they say to a grieving parent. Honestly, most don’t know that there’s nothing to say to make it better.

That being said, I’m really hating the “You can have more children” and “Be grateful you have other children” comments. I guess it’s having our rainbow baby that makes me see those for the crap that I think they are. I didn’t take comfort with those words at the time, but now they just piss me off.

Nobody would say to an amputee “Be grateful you have another arm” or “You can always get a prosthetic leg in the future”. Why? For obvious reasons. Why aren’t the reasons so obvious after losing a child? I don’t know. For some things, there just are no replacements…and there is no comfort in the pretense of otherwise.

Okay, feeling a little better now. Confessional and vent over. Hopefully I’ll have more coherent or insightful things to say the next chance I get to sit down and blog. For now, I’m content with getting some of it out…regardless of how random it is. ;-)

When a baby dies (video)

This video was shared by Every Life Has A Story.

The people who made the video got the feelings - especially the first part - exactly right.

Grief through art

I didn’t sit down at my computer tonight to blog. Mainly, I’m hiding from the pile of dinner dishes awaiting me in the kitchen.

I wish I was artsy. I'm not. I'm about as far from talented in the arts as a person can get. I greatly appreciate art, however, and I have something that I would dearly love to share. I hope it speaks to you as it did to me.

We all read blogs, poetry, quotes and stories that we can connect with. It’s not very often we find art that speaks to us in the grief world. If sometimes there are no words, how could there be art? Well, there is. I've found quite a few artists online who express themselves and their grief dynamically through art, but these pieces in particular grabbed my attention. I received permission from the artist to post her artwork on my blog in the hopes that it can connect with others as it did me. You can read her blog and see her artwork here.




This first piece was the one that caught my eye. Feeling everything weighing on you and not having words to express that heavy burden, her art said it all.





This second piece means the most to me, the one that captured everything I was feeling those first few months. Being left behind. It encompasses those early stages of grief, and some of the later. No one stays behind with you when you grieve; eventually, they all move on with their lives. But not us. We watch, hurting and unable to move forward as our lives should have. I can't express in words what she did with one painting.





This one represents to me what my husband and I went through about six months after our loss. Our grief took us different places and before we knew it, this huge chasm had opened up between us. For a while we couldn’t reach each other and were alone in our grieving. At this point in time, I wasn’t sure our marriage would survive.

Thankfully, we found the strength to bridge that gap, and it did.





No matter how far away we are from our loss, this is what we all are doing deep inside. Still grieving.


Rachel, thank you so much for allowing me to share your work with the world. I know it was a personal journey for you, and your artwork helps others to find a connection when sometimes words just can't. You are truly talented.

18 months

*Sigh*

Unfortunately, I don’t have the time required tonight to write all that I would like to. For now, I’m remembering Brayden 18 months after we said goodbye.

Some days, it’s so easy to forget that this happened to us, really happened. Some days, it’s like it was all a bad dream that has faded with the early morning light, leaving behind faint feelings of sadness and regret. I can look at our rainbow baby and almost forget he had a big brother that he never new and has now outlived.

Other days, I remember how it felt to come home from the hospital. How I felt nothing and everything at the same time. How it felt to walk by the nursery door, knowing what was in there but having nowhere near the courage to open it and walk in. The endless hours I spent on the floor of the nursery, hugging the blankets that were meant for him and crying until I was sick. I would hold the packets containing the precious few pictures we have of him, run my fingers over the envelope, but not open them. My arms hurt so very badly because they were empty.

And the last time I saw him. When the nurse carried him out for the last time, the last glimpse I had of the back of his head as she was leaving and how perfect he looked. It’s burned in my memory, along with the urge to chase her down screaming and take him away from her and never let him go.

I’m not ashamed to say those days are moving farther into my past and I’m glad of it. Missing Brayden will never change, but the fading of those memories can’t come fast enough.

I miss my little man today, and every day. Our family will grow and move on, but never be the same.

I love you, Brayden.

Gone yet not forgotten,
Although we are apart,
Your spirit lives within me,
Forever in my heart.

Time to let go

Even though I experience time between my down days, it doesn’t make them any easier to deal with. It doesn’t make the pain less, and it doesn’t make the hurt stop. But, I do experience a measure of peace in these times between and that is new and precious to me. Peace that I took for granted before Brayden left us.

This has been a down week. I guess I was due for one, although I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go through another one.

It’s different now. A year ago, I was torn apart on the inside and not much of a functioning human being. I can remember every detail of what that stage of grief felt like, and I’m grateful to not be there now.

Back then, the haunting questions were still with me. I would cry and silently ask why? Why couldn’t he be with us? Was it something I did? Why did this happen? I would cry and silently hate everything and everyone around me for what I was going through, for not understanding the depths of my pain, for not mourning as I did. I wanted to die with my son. I wanted my pain to end. I wanted to turn back the clock. I wanted him back.

Now when I feel the down days upon me, there are no questions or accusations or unending pain directed at everywhere and nowhere. I cry and the voices in my head are silent. I cry and it just hurts. I feel like there’s a big cavernous black hole of pain surrounding me. Surrounding me, but not consuming me…if that makes sense.

I’d be lying if I said having a rainbow baby didn’t make a difference. It did. My subsequent pregnancy after loss and the birth of our living, breathing son has helped heal me like nothing else ever could. I didn’t think it would be like that.

I hated every second of being pregnant with him, I was terrified beyond measure and stressed to the max. It was the longest pregnancy in history…at least, in my mind. I knew the worries wouldn’t end there – I saw far ahead. There was still SIDS, choking, car accidents, suffocation…you name it, in every day life I saw one more thing that could potentially take our precious baby away if he survived the pregnancy.

He’s here, and I still worry like crazy…but it’s one day at a time. That’s the only way I can breathe. One day at a time.

And as much as having him healed a great deal of my heart, there will always be a place that can’t ever be healed. I feel it every day, because it still hurts.

I never thought Brayden would be replaced. I never wanted him to be. I’m just surprised that what wasn’t meant to be can still hurt so badly.

Summer is coming fast, and I can’t ignore the fact that my precious lost son’s remains have yet to be dealt with. My husband has brought up a few conversations regarding where and when to spread his ashes. I always manage to turn the conversation pretty easily. I know I need to do something, but the thought of letting him go hurts more than I can express. I feel panicked, I can’t breathe and my mind screams NO! I can’t let him go. I just can’t. His ashes are all I have left. I’m afraid I’ll grieve all over again. In fact, I know I will. That’s what I feel when it’s brought up, like I’m losing him all over again. I can’t lose him again. I’m not ready.

But, like when we were at the hospital saying goodbye to our little man…life doesn’t give a crap if you’re ready. And it’s past time I said a true goodbye to Brayden. I know this. My heart just crushes at the thought of laying him to rest somewhere. I think it’s because I know as long as he’s here with me, I get to put off grieving again that much longer. And I’m not ready to let him go.

But, what mother is? How much time is enough time, really?

I don’t want to go through this again. But, it’s time. As a good friend of mine says, it’s time to put on my big girl panties. I owe it to my family. I survived losing him, I can survive saying goodbye.

I just don’t want to.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

I haven’t blogged in a while, mostly from lack of time. I’ve been taking each day as it comes, remembering to breathe in and out slowly and be content for just today.

That being said, I ran across something today that made me pause.

I’ve always been an avid reader of anything I could get my hands on. When I was young, one of the first things I remember owning was a book by Shel Silverstein. For those of you unfamiliar with his works, he wrote several excellent books of childrens poetry. I loved reading those books, and thought the other day how great it would be to travel down memory lane and read some fun verses to my 10-year-old son.

The book Where the Sidewalk Ends was the one I remember reading the most. I remember how worn the spine was and how careful I had to be with it towards the end…the pages were quite worn. To this day, I can still recite quite a few limericks and poems from that very book.

The actual poem Where the Sidewalk Ends (hence the title of the book) stopped me short when I read it again for the first time today. I don’t know if this is a difference in my perception. I don’t know if it was meant to speak to me now, as it did today, in the way that it did. I just don’t know.

What I do know is that it’s been almost 18 months since we’ve lost Brayden, and in the last year and a half I’ve read some very moving stories and poems that have helped me through my journey of grief. Most I could connect with, some I just thought were beautiful. I saved all of my favorites, and I’m happy to say my favorite childhood book will now contribute to my collection.


Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.


When reading this, I was struck by how much these words hit home. It’s about unhappy circumstances. It’s about getting through horrible things. It’s about hope, and how beautiful it can be to look ahead with the knowledge that life isn’t always what it is now, that it will get better if we just keep moving forward.

And best of all, it was written with the innocence and understanding of that of a child, which makes it whimsical and precious to me.

Our walk isn’t easy; that’s why we take it “measured and slow” (one day at a time). It’s not so easy to get to the place where the sidewalk ends…and for us, there’s no real end. But that’s a literal interpretation, and there’s no place for that in poetry. No one expects our grief to end, not really. And that’s the point of the poem; not an ending to our grief, but an ending to each hard period of grief we pass. That’s where the sidewalk ends. And that’s where hope begins.

For those of us who repeatedly find ourselves searching for where the sidewalk ends…take the poet’s advice and “watch where the chalk-white arrows go”. It’s a road we’ve been through many times and will travel many times again, but we know this road. We’re the children who mark. We’re the children who know. We know it ends in hope.

And, probably most important, we know we don’t walk it alone.

Rainbows and Grief

Isn’t it strange that with the right situation, clarity comes so swiftly it’s a wonder you never saw things for how they are to begin with?

I’m talking about sleep depravation. Either from child loss or arrival of a rainbow baby (I have both now), we are affected by serious amounts of lack of sleep. Combine this with an overload of hormones, stress, grief and worry and it becomes quite the combination. With this lack of sleep comes lots of time to work through things – by either deep thinking or flat crying them out, we struggle to find answers even when sometimes we know there are none.

So goes the life of a baby loss mother.

Along with this life of ours of grief, sadness, anger and everything else, we deal with coming to terms with things only to fall off the horse again later down the road. That’s where I find myself today. Sitting on my ass in the middle of the road, watching the horse I learned to ride so carefully galloping away from me at top speed. And we had just learned to canter, too. Damn.

With the arrival of our rainbow baby came a whole new host of emotions to the grieving world I thought I was leaving behind – or leaving, at least, the worst of it behind.

Our new son looks so much like the one we lost that it hurts. I have to keep a constant light on in the nursery because with just the right amount of dim, it’s like I’m looking at Brayden. The lips look blue, the eyes closed and face so still…it haunts me. I reach out and touch his little face and find relief that his cheek is warm. I lean down and gently push his back until he grunts and moves, quietly grateful that he responds. Then I realize once again that I never held Brayden, never kissed his cheek and told him how much I dearly loved him. And something inside begins to hurt.

Regret. It sucks.

I would give just about anything to be able to go back and just do that much. My heart would feel so much better, and that memory would be such a comfort. To have been that much of a mother to him, to have been brave and given him what I could have when I had the chance. I’ll never forgive myself for that.

Regret. It really, really sucks.

It’s like I’m reliving what I lost all over again. Before, it was what I almost had. Now, I am seeing (and living) what I really missed.

I don’t like this part. In fact, I hate it. I don’t expect everything to be peachy perfect, but damn…where’s my balance? What happened to the plateau I was on? That wonderful happy place I briefly had that allowed me to think about our loss without dwelling, to remember Brayden without sharp pains or losing my breath.

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep. Maybe it’s the reality of the situation. Maybe this is my forever, the way my life is from now on - one big up and down moment. Maybe it’s everything.